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Protesters refuse to leave Istanbul park despite PM's pledge

By Ayla Jean Yackley and Seda Sezer, Reuters

Posted:
06/15/2013 09:48:26 AM MDT

Updated:
06/15/2013 09:48:52 AM MDT

Anti-government protesters hold a plastic sheet over German pianist Davide Martello to protect him from the heavy rain as he performs in Istanbul's Taksim Square early June 15, 2013. (REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)

ISTANBUL — Turkish protesters defied government calls to leave an Istanbul park on Saturday after more than two weeks of occupation, despite a promise by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to hold a vote on plans to redevelop the site.

Hundreds of people camped out in tents in the mud-soaked Gezi Park adjoining Taksim Square said they would keep their campaign going after the government failed to meet their demands, including for the release of detained demonstrators.

A police crackdown on peaceful campaigners in the park two weeks ago provoked an unprecedented wave of protest against Erdogan and his AK Party which has drawn in secularists, nationalists, professionals, trade unionists and students.

The unrest, in which police fired teargas and water cannon at stone-throwing protesters night after night in cities including Istanbul and Ankara, left four people dead and about 5,000 injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association.

"The government has ignored clear and rightful demands since the beginning of the resistance. They tried to divide, provoke and damage our legitimacy," the Taksim Solidarity Platform, an umbrella group for the protesters, said in a statement.

The group, whose representatives met Erdogan at his official residence in Ankara on Thursday night, said it had seen no serious signs of progress in holding those responsible for the police crackdown to account, nor in investigating the four deaths, one of which was of a policeman.

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"We continue to guard the park," said Mucella Yapici, a spokeswoman for the group, when asked if the protesters were considering withdrawing.

Huseyin Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling AK Party, said police officers who had deliberately sprayed pepper gas in people's faces were being investigated, as were demonstrators who had damaged property.

"If they sprayed it into someone's eye on purpose, or fired it at their head ... this would be wrong and illegal. All of this is being investigated," he said.

Protesters sit in front of the barricade in Istanbul's Taksim Square June 15, 2013. (REUTERS/Osman Orsal)

"Let's say a protestor is chanting slogans with a placard in his hands. Nothing will happen to him. But if he burns bank ATM machines ... smashes shop windows ... we will get these protesters," Celik added.

RULING PARTY RALLIES

Erdogan told protesters at Thursday's talks he would put plans to build a replica Ottoman-era barracks in Gezi Park on hold until a court rules on them. It was a softer stance, after two weeks in which he called protesters "riff-raff" and said the plans would go ahead regardless.

"The fact that negotiation and dialogue channels are open is a sign of democratic maturity," President Abdullah Gul, who has struck a more conciliatory tone than Erdogan throughout the protests, said on his Twitter account on Saturday.

"I believe this process will have good results. From now on everybody should return home."

What began as a campaign by environmentalists to save one of central Istanbul's green spaces spiralled into the most serious show of defiance of Erdogan and his AK Party during his decade in power.

The ruling party, an association of centrists and conservative religious elements, plans rallies in Ankara later on Saturday and in Istanbul on Sunday.

Erdogan said on Friday they would mark the start of campaigning for local elections next year and were nothing to do with the Gezi Park protest, but they were widely seen as a show of strength in the face of the demonstrations.

Tens of thousands of AK Party supporters waved Turkish flags and banners with the party's lightbulb logo as they streamed into a square in Sincan on the outskirts of Ankara to hear the prime minister address the rally.

"I've come here for one reason, to support Tayyip. To support AKP. What is happening in Taksim is just shameful. It is being carried out by marginal groups, you've seen the PKK (Kurdish) flags up there," said Menderes Kan, 46.

Nurse Sumeyye Erdogmus, 22, said she had changed her views.

"At the beginning I felt sympathy towards those in Gezi Park and I thought our prime minister's tone was too harsh. But now the protests there have turned into something else. Nothing can justify behaviour like cursing the prime minister's mother and burning buses," she said.

"This is anarchy and today we are here to show that our prime minister is not alone."

Erdogan has long been the country's most popular politician, his AK Party winning three successive election victories, each time with a larger share of the vote, but his critics complain of increasing authoritarianism.

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